Of Froot Loops
by Zylstra
Summary: Her cat is a bird, she can’t find a box of Froot Loops anywhere and Jack doesn’t even know her. The alternate timeline brings a bad day for Sam. SG:C spoilers. SJ


Sam was having a bad day. It wasn't as if any day was a good day since she, Daniel and Cam (whom she was missing terribly) had arrived in this timeline, but there were still bad days, slightly less-bad days, and then there was the mind-bogglingly horrible days. This particular day didn't quite fit the description of a horrible day, but it was enough to make Sam feel like punching somebody evil in the face.

In true cliché style, the sky was dark and thundery, and a chill had settled itself in as if to stay. Wind swept through her as she quickly opened her front door and set down her shopping bags on the counter heavily. What a day! Even with her hair longer than it was at the time of her death and the glasses that made her face feel like it was about to fall off, several people at the supermarket had refused to let her slip from their steely stares.

She switched on the television and sat herself down on the couch, flicking through the channels in an attempt to find something she recognized or looked good.

_Flick. _

_Flick._

_Fli-_

Wha...? Sam froze mid click. She recognized this program! It was Star Wars! With mostly the same actors and everything! Same special effects, same dialogue, same character names, same sets, same...

It cut to a commercial break.

_Hang on._

She grimaced and leant back into the sofa. And just when she was starting to think this might have been her constant for this timeline, that tiny bit of hope was crushed. The name of the movie was written in bold letters at the bottom right hand side of the screen.

_Star Battles._

She frowned and shook her head. What had possibly compelled George Lucas to call it _Star Battles_ in this timeline? It didn't work – perhaps it was the extra syllable or the fact that the two words just didn't flow together with the solid 'B' sound of "battles", but whatever it was, it just didn't work. Disappointed, Sam switched of the television, making a point to keep her hand weak enough as to not break the remote control when she pressed the button.

As she purposefully put the remote control down gently, something occurred to her. Perhaps the thing that annoyed her most about this timeline was that the people here sucked at naming stuff! She took, for instance, not only this _Star Battles_ business, but the Frootees she had bought today. Honestly! _Who_ would name anything "Frootees"?

She closed her eyes for a minute, willing herself into a state of calmness. She breathed in...and out. She let the world become negligible. Inhaled the white mist, exhaled the grey mist. She soaked in the silence that was swirling around her...

_Tweet, tweet._

She cracked an eye open, her state of 'zen-ness' evaporating quickly. For a reason she was yet to comprehend, she had been given a bird with her non-disclosure agreement, living allowance, vehicle, residence etc that she had been provided with. Nobody had explained, nor listened to the objections she gave them upon its arrival.

"What am I supposed to do with a bird?" she had asked them.

"I don't know," one of them had replied as he had turned to leave. "Talk to it, sit it on cakes, use it as a feather duster – I don't care. Just try not to kill it."

"Yeah – but...I..."

The man had ignored her, got into his car and driven away with a, "Have a nice day, ma'am."

And so she had this bird that she didn't even ...well, like, for lack of a better word, which was now tweeting annoyingly. Dogs or cats seemed more intelligent – and were inclined to not chirp irritatingly. She steamed as the little yellow thing kept making its chirpy noise. In a feeble attempt to ignore it, she poured herself a bowl of Frootees and sloshed milk on it, chewing on them loudly.

As she crunched on the cereal, the motives behind her cereal slaughter were so invisible that she herself couldn't see them. Only when the thrill of such...small but significant rushes of blissful forgetfulness had settled into a state of accustomed familiarity did she return to her usual level of thinking.

It took a few minutes for the small sugar rush of the cereal to calm and her mind to return to its usual level of thinking. It took a shorter time than she would have liked, preferring the sugary preface of Frootees than the facts. She was missing something – one thing in particular. She missed it more than her Froot Loops and Star Wars. She missed it more than her cat's furry cheek rubbing against her ankle. She didn't kid herself – she missed Daniel and Cam, Vala and Teal'c like hell, but on a different level to this particular thing.

Jack O'Neill.

She shook her head to try and clear her head of a subject that would only cause her more grief, taking another mouthful of the floppy rings that now just tasted like sand granules and cardboard. Even to herself, it sounded kind of silly to be angsting over a guy like characters did in the average dramatic chick flick. Who was she kidding, feeling sorry for herself? She was independent, wasn't she? Yes, she was! She didn't rely on a man to supplement her emotional strength, did she? No! This whole "missing him like hell" was just a misguided manifestation of her slight state of depression and homesickness, wasn't it? Yes, it was! Just because he'd been there for her as a friend the past ten years or so, made her laugh with his corny jokes and sarcasm and as of recently had become her "significant other" was no reason to carry on with this drafty mumbo jumbo...

Was it?

Just because he didn't even know who she was in this timeline beyond a face he'd seen on television and in newspapers couldn't be any reason to feel dejected...

Could it?

Her chewing slowed until she was just grinding her teeth, looking down at the bench and tapping her spoon slowly on its white patterned surface. She really did miss him. A lot. She'd seen him killed on the Tok'ra home planet in her timeline, but when she'd seen Jack on the ice in the Arctic, she deluded herself for a second to believe that everything was going to be okay. She should have known things could never have been that easy. There'd been times in her particularly uneventful life (that left plenty of time for dwelling and stewing) when she'd wondered if it would have been better to see Jack for the last time lying on the ground, ordering her to leave him and save herself and not the look in the other Jack's eyes that thought she was a complete and utter lunatic.

Her eyes burned with tears that fought to fall, but a quick shake of her head dried them out. There was no way she was going to just let herself blubber away like this all the time, no matter how much it hurt. In an attempt to prove this (to herself, mainly) she straightened her shoulders, lifted her bowl of Frootees and shoveled another large spoonful into her mouth. At that moment, the telephone decided to ring – just to make things worse. She sighed and rolled her eyes, picking up the handset and hitting the 'talk' button.

"Hello?" she said as forcefully as she could while half drowning in flavoured, sugary bits of wheat and the white liquid.

"Good afternoon, ma'am, I was just wondering if you'd be interested in purchasing..." The telemarketer on the other end of the line either didn't notice her tone or didn't care.

Sam didn't need him to finish his sentence before she cut him off. "No."

"But it comes with a lifetime warranty and a discount off future purchases..."

"No."

"It holds its value..."

"No."

"And is available in seven different colours..."

"No!" As to why she didn't simply hang up, she didn't know. At this point, her anger had reached a stage where she actually _growled_ down the phone line. The telemarketer instantly quieted, sensing danger.

He tried to cut and run. "Perhaps I should..."

He was too late.

Sam swallowed her mouthful and glared at no-one in particular. "Okay, bucko. This is how it's going to work. You are going to listen to everything I have to say and you better not hang up until I've finished." The man's stunned silence was indicative of his agreement. For a second, Sam thought: the General Landry of this timeline had warned her to behave herself in public. Then she realized she wasn't in public – but more to the point, she found that she didn't care in the slightest.

"Today!" she started with the full extent of what she was feeling, "I woke up knowing that Jack may as well not exist, my cat is now a bird and unless you can find me a genuine box of Froot Loops in the known realm of space and time, _I do not want to hear from you again_! _Do you understand me_?"

The telemarketer spoke slowly as to not anger her further. "Thank you, ma'am." He hung up extraordinarily quickly.

Sam looked at the phone as it beeped idly in her hand. She put it down heavily, leaning into her hands. She found it harder to breathe: her tears, although they weren't shed, had taken her throat in an iron grip.

Whether he was alive or dead, her Jack O'Neill was gone. He wasn't who she remembered him as; he hadn't been through the things that had made him who he was. She was stuck here and she didn't have the power to change anything – at least, not at the moment. At a loss of what to do, she turned to stare out the window and onto the street.

Thinking.

It was here she would stand for hours to come.

---

A bit out of character, but here it is n.n; Thanks for reading and have a great day.


End file.
